[axaxs]

What makes you think new entrants? Just curious. On the fab side definitely not... there's really only 3 fabs competing on the bleeding edge side of things, and it costs way too much to open another. On the 'chip designer' side maybe, but I'm not sure why Intel's performance affects whether or not someone jumps in. I basically see a convergence coming, with ARM stuff getting better performance, and x86 stuff using less power...so there will be an interesting crossroads of sorts to see which direction things go.

[airesQ]

The new entrants would be on the design side. If Intel no longer holds the keys to best fab-tech in the world then all bets are off.

(I'm assuming that Intel doesn't allow competitors to use their fabs; and that Intel does indeed have the best fab-tech at the moment; maybe I'm wrong.)

[mng2]

Even a fabless semiconductor company (e.g. nVidia, Apple, heck, AMD) needs to spend hundreds of millions to tape out a leading-edge IC. It's a capital-intensive business, and would present quite a risky bet for any upstart competitors. Also, patents.

https://semiengineering.com/big-trouble-at-3nm/

[foota]

It would be fascinating for another major fab to arise. It's not impossible to imagine how either, a large chip designer with piles of cash could decide they want to get into fab, or a niche fab could slowly move into it?

[analognoise]

Not going to happen unless there is some absolute paradigm shift in technology. Not many people throw around 20 billion dollars on upstarts.

The problem is that the paradigm shift technology we've read about multiple times has always been overcome by more investment in standard silicon processes.

Economically we're long past the point of contraction - there has been a ridiculous pace of mergers in the semiconductor industry to have the network effects to stay current. The effects are worse at the top, and we are down to three companies even in the race.

Basically, no, we'll never have another fab entrant who is a major player.